" And they had slime for mortar;" not, on the contrary, mortar for slime. For the wicked appear to strengthen and fortify what is weak against what is more powerful, and from their own resources to consolidate and preserve what melts and flows away from such things, in order that they may aim and shoot at virtue from a safe place. But the merciful God and father of the good will not permit their buildings to be esta- blished in indissoluble safety, their work of melting zeal not being able to withstand, but becoming like soft mud.
For, if their clay had become mortar, then perchance that earthy thing perceptible by the outward senses, which is for ever and ever in a continued state of flux, would have been able to arrive at a safe and unalterable power; but since, on the contrary, their mortar became mere slime, we must not despair, for there is in this, certain hope that the strong forti- fications of vice may be overthrown by the might of God. Therefore the just man, even in the great and incessant deluge of life, while he is not as yet able to see things really as they are by the energy of his soul alone without the assistance of the outward sense, will anoint " the ark," by which I understand the body, "both within and without with pitch,"* strength- ening his imaginations and energies by his own resources; but when the danger has ceased and the violence of the flood abated, then he will come forth, availing himself of his incor- poreal mind for the comprehension of truth.
For the good disposition being from the very birth of the man planted in virtue, and being spoken of as such, its name being Moses, dwelling in the whole world as his native city and country, becoming, as it were, a cosmopolite, being bound up in the body, smeared over as with " bitumen and pitch, "f * Genesis vi. 14. + Exodus ii. 3.
ON THE CONFUSION OF LANGUAGES. 23 and appearing to be able to receive and to contain in security all the imaginations of all things which might be subjected to the outward senses, weeps* at being so bound up, being over- whelmed with a desire for an incorporeal nature. And he weeps over the miserable mind of men in general as being wandering and puffed up with pride, inasmuch as, being elated with false opinion, it thinks that it has in itself something firm and safe, and, as a geueral fact, that there something im- mutable in some creature or other, though the example of perpetual stability, which is at all times the same, is set up in God alone.
XXIII. And the expression, "Come, and let us build our- selves a city and a tower, the top of which shall reach to heaven," has such a meaning as this concealed beneath it: the lawgiver does not conceive that those only are cities which are built upon the earth, the materials of which are wood and stone, but he thinks that there are other cities also which men bear about with them, being built in their souls; and these are, as is natural, the archetypes and models of the others, inasmuch as they have received a more divine building, and the others are but imitations of them, as consisting of perishable substances.
But there are two species of cities, the one better, the other worse. That is the better which enjoys a democratic government, a constitution which honours equality, the rulers of which are law and justice; and such a constitution as this is a hymn to God. But that is the worse kind which adulte rates this constitution, just as base and clipped money is adulterated in the coinage, being, in fact, ochlocracy, which admires inequality, in which injustice and lawlessness bear sway. Now good men are enrolled as citizens in the consti- tution of the first-mentioned kind of city; but the multitude of the wicked clings to the other and worse sort, loving dis- order more than orderliness, and confusion rather than well- established steadiness.
And the wicked man seeks for coadjutors in his practice of wickedness, not looking upon himself as sufficient by himself. And he exhorts the sight, and he exhorts the hearing, and he exhorts every outward sense in succession, to range itself on his side without delay, and every one of them to bring to him * Exodus ii. 6.
24 PHILO JUD.EUS.
all things necessary for his service. And he raises up and sharpens all the rest of the company of the passions, which are by their own nature unmanageable, in order that by the ad- dition of practice and care they may become irresistible. The mind, therefore, having called in these allies, says, " Let us build ourselves a city;" an expression equivalent to, Let us fortify our own things; let us fence them around to the best of our power, so that we may not be easily taken by those who attack us; let us divide and distribute, as into tribes and boroughs, each of the powers existing in the soul, allotting some to the rational part, and some to the irrational part; let us choose competent rulers, wealth, glory, honour, pleasure, by means of which we may be able to become masters of every- thing; banishing to a distance justice, the invariable cause of poverty and ingloriousness; and let us enact laws, which shall confirm the chief power and advantage to those who are always able to get the better of others.
And let a tower be built in this city as a citadel, to be a strong palace for the tyrant vice, whose feet shall walk upon the earth, and its head shall, through pride, be raised to such a height as to reach even to heaven; for, in good truth, it rests not only upon human sins, but it also hastens forward as far as heaven, pushing up its words of impiety and ungod- liness, since it either speaks of God so as to assert that he has no existence, or that, though he exists, he has no providence, or to affirm that the world had no beginning of creation, or that, admitting that it has been created, it is borne on by unsteady causes, just as chance may direct, at one time wrongly, at another time in an irreproachable manner, just as often happens in the case of chariots or ships. For sometimes the voyage of a ship, or the course of a chariot, goes on properly even without charioteers or pilots; but success is not only now and then owing to providences, but very often to human pru- dence and invariably to divine, since error is admitted to be altogether incompatible with divine power. Now what object can the foolish men have who, speaking figuratively, build up the reasonings of wickedness like a tower, except the desire of leaving behind them a name which shall be far from a good name?
XXIV. For they say, " Let us make for ourselves a name.'" 0, the excessive and profligate impudence of such a saying! What say ye? When ye ought to seek to bury ON THE CONFUSION OF LANGUAGES. 25 your iniquities under night and profound darkness, and to assume as a veil for them, shame, if not genuine, at all events pretended shame, whether for the sake of gaining favour in the eyes of the moderate and virtuous, or for that of avoiding punishment for admitted wickedness; do ye, nevertheless, proceed to such a pitch of audacity, as all but to come forth and display yourselves in the light and in the most brilliant beams of the sun, and to fear neither the threats of better men, nor the implacable justice of God, which impends over such un- godly and desperate men? But ye think fit even to send around in every direction reports, to carry intelligence of your domestic iniquities, in order that no one may be uninformed of or unacquainted with your deeds of daring wickedness, wretched and infamous men that ye are.
What name, therefore, do ye wish to assume? Is it the one which is most suitable to your actions? But is there not one name only which is suited to them? It may, perhaps, be one in genus; but there are ten thousand such names in species, which you will hear from others, even if ye keep silence your- selves. The names adapted to your conduct are, rashness united with shamelessness, insolence combined with violence, violence in union with homicide, corruption in combination with adultery, undefined appetite accompanied by unmeasured indulgence in pleasures, folly joined with impudence, injustice united to crafty wickedness, theft combined with rapine, per- jury united with lying, impiety combined with utter lawless- ness. Such, and similar to these, are the names of such actions. And it is well for them to boast over and pride themselves, upon seeking for reputation from actions which it would be more seemly to hide and to be ashamed of.
And, indeed, some persons do pride themselves on these things, thinking that in consequence of them they do derive a certain irresistible degree of power among men from this idea being entertained respecting them; but they will not escape the divine vengeance for their enormous audacity, and very soon they will have occasion not only to anticipate at a distance, but even to see immediately impending their own death. For they Bay, " Before we are dispersed, let us have a care for our name and our glory." Should I not then say to them, Ye know that ye will be dispersed? Why, then, do ye commit iniquity?
But perhaps he is here placing before us the manner of 20 PHILO JUD.EUS.
foolish men who, even when the very greatest punishments are not obscurely impending over them, but are often visibly threatening them, nevertheless do not hesitate to commit iniquity. And the punishments, however they may seem to be concealed, are in reality most notorious, which are inflicted by God. For all the most wicked of men adopt ideas that they can never escape the knowledge of the deity when doing wrong, and that they shall never be able to ward off alto- gether the day of retribution. Since otherwise, how do they know that they will be dispersed? And yet they say, " Before we are dispersed." But their conscience, which is within, con- victs them, and pricks them vehemently, when devoting them- selves to ungodliness, so as to draw them against their will to a confession that all the circumstances affecting men are over- looked by a superior nature, and that justice is watching above, as an incorruptible chastiser, hating the unjust actions of the impious, and the reasonings and speeches which undertake their defence.
XXV. But all these men are the offspring of that wicked- ness which is always dying but which never dies, the name of which is Cain. Is not Cain represented as having begotten a son whom he called Enoch,* and as building a city to which he gave the same name, and as after a fashion building up created and mortal things to the destruction of those things which have received a more divine formation? For the name Enoch, being interpreted, means "thy grace." But every impious man supposes that what he thinks and understands is owing to the bounty of his intellect towards him; that what he sees is the gift of his eyes to him, what he hears of his ears, what he smells of his nostrils, and so that each of his outward senses bestows on him those perceptions which are in accordance with them. Again, that it is the organs of the voice which endow him with the capacity of speaking, and that there is actually no such thing as a God at all, or at all events that he is not the primary cause of things.
Because of these views he assigns to himself the first fruits of the fruits which he extracts from the earth by his husbandry, being contented afterwards to offer to God some of the fruit, at id that too though he has a sound example at hand; for his brother offers a sacrifice of the offspring of the flock, offer- * Genesis iv. 17.
ON THE CONFUSION OF LANGUAGES. 27 ing the firstborn, and not those which are of secondary value; confessing that the eldest causes of all existing things are suited to the eldest and first cause. But the impious man thinks exactly the contrary, namely, that the mind is endowed with absolute power to do whatever it desires, and that the outward senses have absolute power as to all that they feel, for that both the mind and the outward senses decide in an irreproachable and unerring manner, the one on bodies, and the other on everything. Now what can be more open to blame, or more capable of conviction by truth, than such ideas us these? Has not the mind been repeatedly convicted of innumerable acts of folly? And have not all the outward senses been convicted of bearing false witness, and that too not by irrational judges who, it is natural to suppose, may be deceived, but before the tribunal of nature herself, which it is impossible to corrupt or to pervert?
And indeed as the criteria both of our mind and of our outward senses are liable to error respecting even ourselves, it follows of necessity that we must make the corresponding confession that God sheds upon the mind the power of intel- lect, and on the outward senses the faculty of apprehension, ;u id that these benefits are conferred upon us not by our Owd members but by him to whom also we owe our existence.
XXVI. The children who have received from their father the inheritance of self-love are eager to go on increasing up to heaven, until justice, which loves virtue and hates iniquity, sorning destroys their cities which they have built up by the side of their miserable souls, and the tower the name of which is displayed in the book which is entitled the Book of Judg- ment. And the name is, as the Hebrews say, Phanuel, which translated into our language means, " turning away from Sod." For any strong building which is erected by means of plausible arguments is not built for the sake of any other )bject except that of averting and alienating the mind from ;he honour due to God, than which object what can be more niquitous? But for the destruction of this strong fortifica- ion a ravager and an enemy of iniquity is prepared who is ilways full of hostility towards it; whom the Hebrews call jideon; which name being interpreted means, " a retreat for obbers." "For," says Moses, "Gideon swore to the men of Phanuel, saying, On the day when I return victorious in peace, 28 ruiLO jud^us.
28 ruiLO jud^us.
I will overthrow this tower." * A very beautiful and most becoming boast for the soul which hates wickedness and is sharpened against the impious, namely, that it is resolved to overthrow every reasoning which by its persuasions seeks to turn the mind away from holiness, and this indeed is the natural result. For when the mind turns round, then that which turns away from it, and rejects it is again dissolved, and this is the opportunity for destroying it which (a most wonderful thing) he calls not war but peace. For, owing to the stability and firmness of the mind which piety is accus- tomed to produce, every reasoning which impiety has formed is overturned.
Many also have even erected the outward senses after the fashion of a tower, raising them to such a height as to be able to reach the very borders of heaven. But the term heaven is here used symbolically to signify our mind, according to which the best and most divine natures revolve. But they who dare such deeds prefer the outward senses to the intellect, and desire by means of the outward senses forcibly to destroy all the objects of intellect, compelling those things which are, at present masters to descend into the rank of servants, and rais- ing those things which are by nature slaves to the rank of masters.
XXVII. And the statement, " The Lord went down to see that city and that tower " must be listened to altogether as if spoken in a figurative sense. For to think that the divinity can go towards, or go from, or go down, or go to meet, or, in short, that it has the same positions and motions as particular animals, and that it is susceptible of real motion at all, is, to use a common proverb, an impiety deserving of being banished beyond the sea and beyond the world. But these things are spoken, as if of man, by the lawgiver, of God who is not invested with human form, for the sake of advantage to us who are to be instructed, as I have often said before with reference to other passages. Since who is there who does not know that it is indispensable for a person who goes down, to leave one place and to occupy another? But all places are filled at once by God, who surrounds them all and is not surrounded by any of them, to whom alone it is possible to bo everywhere and also nowhere. Nowhere, because he himself * Judges viii. 9.
ON THE CONFUSION OF LANGUAGES. 29 created place and space at the same time that he created jodies, and it is impious to say that the Creator is contained in mything that he has created.
Again, he is everywhere, because, having extended his powers 10 as to make them pervade earth, and water, and air, and leaven, he has left no portion of the world desolate, but, hav- ng collected everything together, he has bound them with :hains which cannot be burst, * so that they are never eman- cipated, on which account he is especially to be praised with lymns.
For that which is higher than all powers is understood to ixceed them, not merely in the fact of its existence. But the >ower of this being which made and arranged everything is pith perfect truth called God, and it contains everything in its iosom, and pervades every portion of the universe. But the .ivine being, both invisible and incomprehensible, is indeed very where, but still, in truth, he is nowhere visible or com- irehensible. But when he says, " I am be who stands before liee,"f he appears indeed to be displayed and to be compre- ended, though before any exhibition or conception he was uperior to all created things. Therefore, no one of the words rhich implies a motion from place to place is appropriate to bat God who exists only in essence; such expressions, I mean, s going upwards or downwards, to the right or to the left, )rwards or backwards." For he is not conceived of in any ne of the above mentioned ideas, inasmuch as he never irns round or changes his place.
But, nevertheless, he is said to have come down and to have sen, he who by his foreknowledge comprehends everything, ot only that has happened, but even before it happens; and lis expression is used for the sake of exhortation and instruc- on, in order that no man, indulging in uncertain conjectures bout matters which he is not present to behold may, while anding afar off, be too prompt to believe idle fancies, but that very one may come close to the facts, and examining each ne separately, may carefully and thoroughly consider them, 'or certain sight is more deserving to be looked upon as a * The text has aoparoif, "invisible," but I have followed Mangey's ■auslation, who reads djop/jferoic;. The remainder of the sentence is tceedingly corrupt.
t Exodua xvii. 6.
80 PHILO JUD^US.
trustworthy witness than fallacious hearing. On which account a law has been enacted among those nations which have the most excellent constitution, that one must not give evidence on hearsay, because by its own nature the tribunal of the sense of hearing is liable to be corrupted. And Moses indeed says in the prohibitory part of his law, "Thou shalt not receive vain hearing/* Meaning not only this, that one ought not to receive false or silly reports by hearsay, but that, as far as the clear comprehension of the truth is concerned, the hearing is a long way behind the sight, being full of vanity.
XXVIII. We say that this is the reason why it is said that God went down to see the city and the tower; and the addition, " Which the sons of men had built," is not a mere superfluity. For perhaps some profanely disposed person may mock and say, " The lawgiver is here teaching us a very novel kind of lesson, when he says that no one else but the sons of men build cities and towers; for who, even of the most crazy people is ignorant of what is so evident and notorious as that?" But we must not suppose that such a plain and unquestionable fact as that, is what is intended to be conveyed by the mention of it in the holy scriptures, but rather there is some hidden meaning concealed under these apparently plain words which we must trace out. What then is this hidden meaning?
Those who, as it were, attribute many fathers to existing things, and who represent the company of the gods as nume- rous, displaying great ignorance of the nature of things and causing great confusion, and making pleasure the proper object of the soul, are those who are, if we must tell the plain truth, spoken of as the builders of the aforesaid city, and of the citadel in it; having increased the efficient causes of the desired end, building them up like houses, being, as I imagine, in no respect different from the children of tbe harlot whom the law expels from the assembly of God, where it says, " The offspring of a harlot shall not come into the assembly of the Lord."f Because, like archers shooting at random at many objects, and not aiming skilfully or successfully at any one mark, so these men, putting forward ten thousand principles and causes for the creation of the universe, every one of which is false, display a perfect ignorance of the one Creator and Father of * Exodua xxiii. 1. *f Deuteronomy xxiii. 2.
ON THE CONFUSION OF LANGUAGES. 31 all things; but they who have real knowledge, are properly addressed as the sons of the one God, as Moses also entitles them, where he says, "Ye are the sons of the Lord God."* And again, " God who begot thee; " f and in another place, * Is not he thy father?"
Accordingly, it is natural for those who have this disposition of soul to look upon nothing as beautiful except what is good, which is the citadel erected by those who are experienced in this kind of warfare as a defence against the end of pleasure, and as a means of defeating and destroying it. And even if there be not as yet any one who is worthy to be called a son of God, nevertheless let him labour earnestly to be adorned ac- cording to his first-born word, the eldest of his angels, as the great archangel of many names; for he is called, the authority, and the name of God, and the Word, and man according to God's image, and he who sees Israel. For which reason I was induced a little while ago to praise the principles of those who said, "We are all one man's sons." J For even if we are not yet suitable to be called the sons of God, still we may deserve to be called the children of his eternal image, of his most sacred word; for the image of God is his most ancient word.
And, "indeed, in many passages of the law, the children of Israel are called hearers of him that seeth, since hearing is honoured with the second rank next after the sense of sight, and since that which is in need of instruction is at all times second to that which can receive clear impressions of the sub- jects submitted to it without any such information. And I also admire the things which are spoken under divine inspira- tion in the books of Kings, according to which those who flourished' many generations afterwards and lived in a blame- less manner, are spoken of as the sons of David who wrote hymns to God; § though, during his lifetime, even their great grandfathers had not yet been born. The truth is, that the birth here spoken of is that of souls made immortal by their virtues, not of perishable bodies, and this birth is naturally referred to the leaders of virtue, as its parents and progeni- tors.
XXIX. But against those who pride themselves on injustice, * Deuteronomy xiv. 1. t Deuteronomy xxxii. 18.
32 PHILO JUD/EUS.
the Lord said, "Behold, there is one race and one language among them all," an expression equivalent to, Behold, there is one family and one bond of relationship, and also, one harmony and agreement among them all together, no one being in his mind at all alienated from or disconnected with his neighbour, as is the case with illiterate men. For at times, the organ of speech among them is, in all its tones, out of tune and inharmonious in no slight degree, being in fact carefully arranged so as to produce inharmoniousness, and having only such a concert as will cause a want of melody.
And in the case of fevers,* one may see very similar effects; for they are periodical changes, in some recurring every day, in others every third or every fourth day, as the sons of the physicians say.; and they have also stated hours, both by day and night, at which important crises may be expected, and they at all times keep nearly the same order.